Collaborative Research: Eye movements and retinotopic face encoding in children, adults, and developmental prosopagnosia

人脸识别是社会交往的核心，有人脸识别障碍的人会受到影响他们个人和职业生活的困难的影响。先前的研究表明，人脸识别能力受到人们看脸的位置的强烈影响，并且对于给定的人来说，这往往是一致的。例如，有些人总是看两眼之间，而另一些人则看靠近鼻尖或嘴。研究还表明，当每个人看向他们通常固定的位置附近时，他们对面孔的识别效果最好。这些习惯表明，每个人的面部处理和眼球运动系统都是相互塑造或调整的，以优化识别能力。然而，人们对这些因素如何影响面部识别能力的差异、它们在成年人中如何变化以及它们在儿童中如何发展知之甚少。该项目将解决这些基本问题，并可能在治疗面部识别缺陷患者方面发挥重要作用。该项目将包括三个部分：在项目的第一部分，研究人员将研究18至50岁的成年人通常看脸的位置以及他们的“甜蜜点”（固定和处理之间的最佳匹配）所在。初步结果表明，成年人随着年龄的增长，面部表情往往会降低，这表明即使在成年期，我们的面部系统也会发生变化。这项研究将通过比较不同年龄的人来研究这是否适用于更大的样本，并将通过一次测量同一参与者，然后在三年后再次测量，来探索个体注视变化的动态。在第二部分中，研究人员将检查患有发育性面孔失认症（DP）的人，一种以严重的面部识别障碍为特征的疾病，看脸的地方，以及他们看的地方和他们的甜蜜点之间是否有很好的匹配。在第三部分中，研究人员将确定孩子们在脸上看什么，以及随着年龄的增长，他们对面孔的调整如何变化。预计孩子们看的地方不会改变，但随着年龄的增长，他们的面部调整会变得更清晰。这些可能性将通过比较不同年龄段的儿童和通过对相同儿童的纵向测试进行测试。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Face recognition is central for social interaction, and people with face recognition impairments suffer from difficulties that impact their personal and professional lives. Previous research has indicated that face recognition ability is strongly influenced by where on the face people look, and that this tends to be consistent for a given person. For example, some people always look between the eyes, while others look close to the tip of the nose or the mouth. It has also been shown that each person recognizes faces best when they look near the location they normally fixate. These habits suggest that each person's face processing and eye movement systems have been mutually shaped, or tuned, to optimize recognition ability. However, little is known about how these factors contribute to differences in face recognition ability, how they change in adults, and how they develop in children. This project will address these fundamental questions, and could prove important in treating patients with deficits in face recognition. The project will consist of three components: In the project’s first component, the investigators will examine where adults between the ages of 18 and 50 usually look on faces and where their “sweet spot” (optimal match between fixation and processing) lies. Preliminary results indicate that adults tend to look lower on faces as they age, indicating that the tuning of our face system changes even in adulthood. This study will examine whether this holds for a larger sample by comparing across ages and will explore the dynamics of gaze changes for individuals by measuring the same participants once and then again three years later. In the second component, the investigators will examine where people with developmental prosopagnosia (DP), a condition characterized by severe face recognition impairments, look on faces and whether they show a good match between where they look and their sweet spot. In the third component, the investigators will determine where children look on the face and how their tuning to faces changes as they age. It is expected that where children look will not change but that their face tuning will become sharper as they age. These possibilities will be tested by comparing children across different ages and through longitudinal testing of the same children.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.